Wonderful garden! Good rock work too! I'm only an hour away and hope to see your garden some day in person. Cher, the leaves appear to have come from Arbutus menziesii. They normally shed during the summer, beginning in June. It's nature's way of dealing with our dry summers. AKA Madrona, a broadleaf evergreen tree with peeling, reddish bark. We have several weeks before we see the real Fall. Mike

That is very pretty. We had that yesterday morning.

Marlorena, I'm so glad you see a difference. I'm here every day so it's difficult to judge. Titian, I wonder what causes the differences in SdlM. Other people have mentioned the pale flowers. You'd think with my rotten soil, heat and drought this rose would be a mess, but it's been one of my most reliable roses. Trust me, if you could see my list of discarded roses, you'd feel better. I'm afraid and ashamed to count them, the number is so huge. After more than eight years, more than half are young roses, which really discourages me sometimes since they take so long to get going. I've concentrated more on tea roses now, although I have a feeling many will outgrow their allotted spaces. I'm not too fond of Chinas except Mutabilis and many of the Austins didn't do well here. I always feel that no matter what I do I've made mistakes again, but I just keep muddling along.

The common willow with this appearance is 'Kilmarnock'. It is often traded as 'Pendula' but strictly speaking there is no cultivar with that name, the term instead being var. pendula, with there being two cultivated representatives - a now infrequent, female 'Weeping Sally' and a recently much sold, male 'Kilmarnock'. As with all weeping variants it is much preferred to have these placed where the branches can cascade, instead of being clipped (or browsed, in this case) to produce a silly perched or truncated effect.